question about 6 year old in front seat

Hi,
I have a sincere question and I'd like some input on it. You may not
agree with my question but I would like good well thought out feedback.
My wife disagrees with me on this one. If there is a real risk, I'll
change my mind. But it seems to me that statistically, the risk is not
really there.
I have a 6 year old son and live in California. Vehicle code 27360 and
27360.5 say that my 6 year old can ride in the front seat. (Please, if
you're going to argue that it does not, please quote the actual law
that says so.)
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc27360.htm
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc27360_5.htm
The warning on my visor mentions death or serious injury due to air bag
until he is older than 12.
I went to
http://www.applications.dhs.ca.gov/epicdata/default.htm
to see what the death and injury rate for children 7 and under as
vehicle passengers was.
It has great data broken down by age, race, gender, fatal injuries,
nonfatal hospital injuries, etc.

Based on what I see there, and based on what I hear about in the news.
It really seems to me that having a properly restrained 6 year old in
the front seat with an air bag is not a big deal. I definitely do hear
about death and injury for child passengers that are not restrained.
But I have yet to hear about a death or injury that occurred where the
restraint was properly used.

Another way to look at it. Once I heard a paramedic say, "I've never
unbuckled a dead person but I've dealt with lots of dead people that
weren't using their seat belts."

Again, I really am sincere in this question. Any sincere responses
would be appreciated.
Thank you

wrote:

Based on what I see there, and based on what I hear about in the news.
It really seems to me that having a properly restrained 6 year old in
the front seat with an air bag is not a big deal.

I have no idea what the stats are but it scares me to put a 6yo in the front
seat with an airbag. I've only seen news reports of the damage they can do
and the one child I knew that had an air bag go off in her face (6 or 7yo)
had their head rammed down into the gear shifter so hard it put a whole in
her head. She had to wear a helmet for months. She did recover fine but it
was scary and a rather small fender bender. She sustained a worse injury
from the air bag then she did from the accident. She was wearing a seat
belt. My 6yo (soon to be 7yo) will have to ride in the front seat soon as
there will be no room in the back. I'm going to get the passenger side air
bag disengaged and he'll have to stay in his car seat. Getting the air bag
disconnected has been a challenge. I have had a terrible time finding a
mechanic or dealer to do it for liability reasons. I'll end up driving 3
hrs to my dad's house so his mechanic friend can do it for me. I did call
the police station to see if there was a legal reason for them not to be
disconnected and in my area the answer is no. As a matter of fact they have
all their passenger air bags disconnected because sometimes kids ride up
there. The dealer does it for them though :-P.

--
Nikki
Hunter 4/99
Luke 4/01
Thing One and Thing Two :-) EDD 4/06

wrote:

Based on what I see there, and based on what I hear about in the news.
It really seems to me that having a properly restrained 6 year old in
the front seat with an air bag is not a big deal. I definitely do hear
about death and injury for child passengers that are not restrained.
But I have yet to hear about a death or injury that occurred where the
restraint was properly used.

What do you mean by "properly restrained"? If you're
relying on the car's lap and shoulder belt, I think you're
asking for trouble. NHTSA has found over and over again that
the safest place for children under 13 is the back seat, with
appropriate child restraints. Of the people I know who work
in transportation safety, none would allow an under 13 year
old in the front seat if they could help it, especially
with an air bag.

Best wishes,
Ericka

What do you mean by "properly restrained"? If you're
relying on the car's lap and shoulder belt, I think you're
asking for trouble. NHTSA has found over and over again that
the safest place for children under 13 is the back seat, with
appropriate child restraints. Of the people I know who work
in transportation safety, none would allow an under 13 year
old in the front seat if they could help it, especially
with an air bag.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Hi Ericka,
Thanks for the response.
By properly restrained I mean in the booster seat. CA law says that
legally he doesn't need it but visually, it is obvious to me that he is
better off with it.
You're right on the money of the info I'm looking for. Please, if you
can point me to the NHTSA results, I'd really like to see them. I know
this may look like I'm being foolish or arguing, but I see the (front
seat/back seat) and (restrained/not restrained) (booster/no booster)
things all lumped together. I totally understand the restrained and
booster results. I just don't see the results that show air bag
problems with 6 year olds. If it's there, I want to abide by it. If
it's just carry over from 1 year old rear facing deaths, I'd like to
know that.
Thanks again, I hope nobody thinks I'm being argumentative. :-) I'm
just looking for the data that supports the position most people have.
Kind of like that senator that said, "show me the dead Canadians!"
regarding prescription drug imports.

I've only seen news reports of the damage they can do
and the one child I knew that had an air bag go off in her face (6 or 7yo)
had their head rammed down into the gear shifter so hard it put a whole in
her head.

Hi Nikki, thanks for your response.
Yes, I've seen the news reports too. I just haven't seen ANY news
reports about 6 year olds in front seats. The crash you described
sounds like it must have been reported somewhere. If you could point
me to the link, or other links about 6 year olds in front seats with
air bags suffering injury/death, I'd like to see them.
Thanks again!

In article G92Lf.3300$p02.172@trndny08,
"Stephanie" wrote:

I guess stats or no, what's the problem with the back seat? The closer the
risk gets to zero the happier I am, regardless of how low they are to begin
with. Moving from a 1 in 99 to 1 in 100, I would go for 1 in 100.

I'm glad this wasn't a decision I had to make -- this is a relatively
new awareness. (Plus my kids were all teens by the time we could afford
a car with air bags.) Heck, if I was alone in the car with the kids,
one of them was always in the front, from infancy on -- at that time, no
one talked about the back seat being safer.

The "up" side of having a child in the front seat is that it's easier to
have really cool conversations with them. I enjoyed the time I spent
driving my kids places, and the conversations we had, and found that
this was more limited when they were in the back seat.

I'm not saying thats a good enough reason to have them ride in the front
-- only that there is at least one benefit to the front seat.

--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

wrote in message
oups.com...
I just don't see the results that show air bag
problems with 6 year olds. If it's there, I want to abide by it. If
it's just carry over from 1 year old rear facing deaths, I'd like to
know that.

I see a major problem with something coming at my child at about 200mph.
that's a lot faster than any car on the road, highway, freeway, interstate,
whatever. That's about how fast an airbag inflates when deployed. 200
miles per hour, which is over 320kmph. An airbag, if you've ever seen one
after it's been deployed, or have experienced an airbag inflating then you'd
know that airbag material is very thick and strong. It also is often
deployed using pyrotechnics of some sort, which means that there is heat in
them, and often friction burns can happen from an airbag, even at low speeds
because of the way they function, how they function and what they are made
of.
Children are not as safe in the front seat of a car, especially any vehicle
equipped with passenger airbags. The speed and force used is beyond
anything that an average person can comprehend. You need to record an
airbag in use with a high speed camera. It comes out faster than you can
blink, as it comes out in thousandths of a second. You cannot compare a
child to an adult. An adult is more able to hold their own body weight up
should a driver slam on the brakes in an accident. A child does not have
that ability, and a car seat, forward or rear facing, or a booster seat,
does nothing when faced with an airbag. Should a child be leaning forward,
maybe reaching for a dropped toy, playing with the radio, whatever, and
airbags go off, that could and most likely would end in a total disaster. I
personally wouldn't want to be in an accident and have to wonder, what if...
I'd hate even more to wonder, what if... What if I just put the child in the
back seat where an airbag wouldn't be. There's no dash, windshield or
anything similar in the back seat of a car. The point of an airbag is to
make the contact with the dashboard/windshield minimal or nil, and in a back
seat, there's a seat ahead of the back seat, giving more cushion and
avoiding a potentially disasterous connection with the front end of a car.
The safest position in any vehicle for a child in a rear facing or forward
facing car seat is the back middle seat, if the child is in a booster seat
and requires a properly fitted shoulder strap, as ever booster seat I've
come across requires, then in the back seat of a car behind the driver is
the safest position. There are, by far, more crashes that are head on at
higher speeds, and a child in the back is as far away from the front of the
vehicle as possible, and the driver's side is safest as well because there
are more t-bone accidents that happen on the passenger's side than there are
on the driver's side.
I'm not pulling random info from the sky. I'm sure you could google and
find this information. I WILL back up what I said when I have a bit more
time to do so. I read this around recently after my own accident 3 weeks
ago. I was looking up best car seats/booster seats that my children
require, as well as random information like the safest place for a child and
even though my car had no airbags, I did look up information for my own
person reference, and I believe a random link of what I was reading at one
point brought me to airbag info, and it's one of those things that you just
read out of curiosity.
Also, the reason for rear-facing infant seats being dangerous is that with
an airbag, it has enough force that it can, and will, break the seat's area
where the head is, and I HAVE read local news in the past of a time or two
where an infant was killed on contact because of necks snapping and being
decapitated. Sounds sick, but it can happen and has happened. Also, on the
same note, since I just thought of it and we seem to be on the topic of
seat safety for children (well, at least that's where I ran off to!) the
handle in an infant, rear-facing seat should never be in the up position in
a car, which, although not likely a car will roll in a collision, but it
does happen, the handle can snap and also decapitate an infant. I don't
think I could deal with that if it was me, which is the reason I've always
had my children, and any children riding in my car, in the back seat...
I will find the info later today when I have more of a chance.

wrote:

The crash you described
sounds like it must have been reported somewhere. If you could point
me to the link, or other links about 6 year olds in front seats with
air bags suffering injury/death, I'd like to see them.
Thanks again!

I don't have a link for that. Here is an interesting article though.

http://www.safety-council.org/info/traffic/childair.htm It is from Canada
but references a study that I couldn't find.

" Recent data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the U.S.
(Status Report, December 7, 1996) show that air bags do not endanger
properly restrained children:
a.. Air bags reduced fatalities among right front-seat occupants ages 10
to 64 by 23 per cent in frontal crashes.

b.. With children nine and under, fatalities were about 33 per cent higher
"than expected" in frontal crashes. Consider that, of the 31 children killed
by deploying air bags, nine (i.e. 27 per cent) were infants in rear-facing
restraints - which almost accounts for those above the "expected" number.
These children should never have been seated in the front passenger
position.

c.. Of the remaining 22 child fatalities, 17 were believed to be unbelted,
three were believed to be using lap belts only, and two were using
lap/shoulder belts but may have been sitting on the seat edge. It is highly
likely none of them was properly restrained. "

I went to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the U.S. site but it
appears that their on-line status reports only go back to 1997.

This is old information but I thought the original article was interesting
none-the-less.

--
Nikki
Hunter 4/99
Luke 4/01
Thing One and Thing Two :-) EDD 4/06

I personally don't want to take any chances. If the car itself says
not to put kids under 12 in the front than don't. It's just not worth
the risk no matter how minimal you feel it is. That is how I
personally feel. The car says not to do it, that's good enough for me.

Nikki wrote:

I'm going to get the passenger side air
bag disengaged and he'll have to stay in his car seat. Getting the air bag
disconnected has been a challenge. I have had a terrible time finding a
mechanic or dealer to do it for liability reasons. I'll end up driving 3
hrs to my dad's house so his mechanic friend can do it for me. I did call
the police station to see if there was a legal reason for them not to be
disconnected and in my area the answer is no. As a matter of fact they have
all their passenger air bags disconnected because sometimes kids ride up
there. The dealer does it for them though :-P.


We're shopping for a Subaru, and apparently in the new ones (I'm not
sure if in the '05 or '06's) the passenger airbag will not deploy if
the weight in the seat does not exceed 65 lbs, which reassures me a
bit, since I do have the baby in the front seat usually. However, the
reason we're looking at the Outbacks to begin with is I *think* we can
get three car seats in the back seat. (I haven't tried it yet...) But
it's an interesting bit of info nonetheless.

Stasya